Look no further~ The Gentleperson's Guide To Forum Spies

Although I saw the ironic humor in your post, others may not. And may akso not have noticed the quote was from the source by another member as shown
here, in full for reference.

Originally posted by groingrinder
I found this part particularly informative. Who can we trust?

Technique #6 - 'GAINING FULL CONTROL' It is important to also be harvesting and continually maneuvering for a forum moderator position. Once
this position is obtained, the forum can then be effectively and quietly controlled by deleting unfavourable postings - and one can eventually steer
the forum into complete failure and lack of interest by the general public. This is the 'ultimate victory' as the forum is no longer participated
with by the general public and no longer useful in maintaining their freedoms. Depending on the level of control you can obtain, you can deliberately
steer a forum into defeat by censoring postings, deleting memberships, flooding, and or accidentally taking the forum offline. By this method the
forum can be quickly killed. However it is not always in the interest to kill a forum as it can be converted into a 'honey pot' gathering center to
collect and misdirect newcomers and from this point be completely used for your control for your agenda purposes.

Originally posted by MDDoxs
I did not want to be the one to point fingers but...

Originally posted by tazdeill2

We all need to be careful wherever we are as even good people can do bad things without realising or meaning to.

This sentence made some red lights flash... Let the paranoia begin! JK

I point this sentence out as to me, taken out of context, it appears to be highly suggestive. Not that it is, sorry to use you as an example
Taz.

edit on 12-7-2012 by MDDoxs because: (no reason given)

edit on 12-7-2012 by MDDoxs because: (no reason given)

Aha, you are one of the paranoid ones then.
Seriously though, you're right, taken out of context it can seem quite sinister, and I suppose that applies to lots of written words, there is no eye
contact, voice inflection, smily/serious fact etc.

As much as I love ATS (long time lurker) I really can't see the U.S Government or any other government wasting time or money on spreading dis-info on
a site like ATS.

To mainstream audiences most ATS topics would appear bizarre and most users nutjobs.

Such agents do certainly exist but I very much doubt on here aside from the various trolls. It is much more likely such agents would operate on major
news network sites and various mainstream social network sites etc.

Originally posted by BlueDawn
As much as I love ATS (long time lurker) I really can't see the U.S Government or any other government wasting time or money on spreading dis-info on
a site like ATS.

This is the place to do it for many reasons. it's not just US government that would be interested,
you can bet your ass there are Chinese and Russians here too collecting as much info as they can.

bet. your. ass.
It's not the site itself that draws attention (admittedly a major factor due to the topics)
it's the people who use the site. We are on the front lines here, whether you know it or not.

Frankly, the "spies" are the least of the problem when admins and mods are oftentimes doing the dirty work themselves. Try go over to (e.g.)
Straight Dope and see how long you last if you do not demonstrate a clear lockstep lemming -like obsequiesness to the flow of opinion. ...no matter
how asinine a direction it may be taking.

'Soft censorship' of this kind has been going on for years. But, I'd like to think people aren't so suggestible that they fall for the
feeble efforts of forum plants and the like.

It seems to me that if we put a label on everyone based on limited interactions with them we will never have a firm grip on where they are truly
coming from regardless of who they work for.
There will always be dissenters and scammers but i do not let em get to me cause i have come to expect them.
I think that one day they should step back and thank me for the job security.

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